GOST

GOST (Russian: ГОСТ) refers to a set of technical standards maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC), a regional standards organization operating under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

All sorts of regulated standards are included, with examples ranging from charting rules for design documentation to recipes and nutritional facts of Soviet-era brand names (which have now become generic, but may only be sold under the label if the technical standard is followed, or re-named if they are reformulated).

History

File:Gost coverpage.jpg

Cover page of an USSR time GOST standard (welding in protective atmosphere)

GOST standards were originally developed by the government of the Soviet Union as part of its national standardization strategy. The word GOST (Russian: ГОСТ) is an acronym for gosudarstvennyy standart (Russian:государственный стандарт), which means state standard.

The history of national standards in the USSR can be traced back to 1925, when a government agency, later named Gosstandart, was established and put in charge of writing, updating, publishing, and disseminating the standards. After World War II, the national standardization program went through a major transformation, which provided the necessary methodological, logistical, and technological support for the long economic expansion that lasted into the early 1980s. The first GOST standard, GOST 1 State Standardization System, was published in 1968.

The present

After the disintegration of the USSR, the GOST standards acquired a new status of the regional standards. They are now administered by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC), a standards organization chartered by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

At present, the collection of GOST standards includes over 20,000 titles used extensively in conformity assessment activities in 12 countries. Serving as the regulatory basis for government and private-sector certification programs throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the GOST standards cover energy, oil and gas, environmental protection, construction, transportation, telecommunications, mining, food processing, and other industries.

The following countries have adopted GOST standards in addition to their own, nationally developed standards: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.

Because GOST standards are adopted by Russia, the largest and most influential member of the CIS, it is a common misconception to think of GOST standards as the national standards of Russia. They are not. Since the EASC, the organization responsible for the development and maintenance of the GOST standards, is recognized by ISO as a regional standards organization, the GOST standards are classified as the regional standards. The national standards of Russia are the GOST R standards.

Examples

• GOST 7.67: Country codes
• GOST 10859: A 1964 character set for computers, includes non-ASCII/non-Unicode characters required when programming in the ALGOL programming language.
• GOST 7396: standard for power plugs and sockets used in Russia and throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States
• GOST 16876-71: a standard for Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration
• GOST 27974-88: Programming language ALGOL 68 - Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68
• GOST 27975-88: Programming language ALGOL 68 extended - Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68 расширенный
• GOST 28147-89 block cipher—commonly referred to as just GOST in cryptography
• GOST 5284-84: Tushonka (canned stewed beef). Ingredients: beef, fat, onion, salt, spices, laurel leaf. Nutritional facts: at least 15 g protein, 17 g fats, 213 kcal/100 g. No less than 54% beef and fat by mass.

External links

• Gosstandart official website